She Came Home
by What Other Planet
Summary: One day, she came home.


**A/N: ****This is set in canon, not the IMEBG!verse.**

**Music choice for this piece is Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem.**

* * *

Tai didn't say anything when he saw her first. It was a sunny day—warm for autumn, even on Patch. She was sitting on a branch high above the house, looking in through the window.

It wasn't the first time, but… it felt different. Maybe it was because the girls were gone, or maybe because Qrow wasn't around. Maybe they'd all found her, and maybe something had happened in Mistral that he wasn't aware of yet. Maybe it was just that when he looked at her, she didn't fly away, didn't pretend that this wasn't real, that she wasn't here. She stayed, perched right there, looking at him through the window of the house they'd built together.

Eventually, she left, but the next day she was back again, watching him. This time, he opened the window, looking up at her as she gazed down at him.

"Hey," he said.

She flew away.

The third day, she didn't show up until the evening. Dark clouds were on the horizon, lightning flashing in the sky above the ocean, and the air had the familiar wetness of a storm that was soon to arrive. He was about to close up the storm shutters when he saw her flying overhead, circling the house. He caught her eye, just long enough to be sure that she saw him, and then she was gone, flying off towards Summer's grave.

Tai sighed and cracked his neck. His body felt old today.

He finished battening the hatches, and walked out into the woods.

She was standing there when he arrived, no longer in her other form. Garbed in the Branwen war garb, with her mask strapped to her belt opposite the huge sheath that held her sword. She stared at the grave, her back to him, but she didn't turn as he approached her.

"Hey," he said again.

She took a breath. "Why did you ever love me, Tai?"

Tai blinked, reorienting around the question. "Okay, that's… a hell of a thing to ask after almost twenty years of silence."

"Shut up." She didn't turn to face him, but her fists tensed in anger. "I'm not asking for your pity. I'm asking _why _you… why _either _of you thought…"

She trailed off into silence. Wind rustled through the leaves above them, as distant thunder tumbled through the sky.

"Yang found you," Tai said, eyes widening.

"Yes, she did."

"She's got your determination."

"My thick-headedness"

"That too." Tai paused. A part of him wanted to draw closer but… he knew this wasn't easy for her. For her to be here, like this… something had shaken Raven to her core. "What happened, Raven?"

A bitter laugh. "I fucked up."

Tai smiled a little. "Okay, but that's not really news. What _happened, _Raven?"

"I did what I thought was best. For the tribe." She sucked in a breath. "And… I met her. A second time, after she found me before. And she…"

There was a wavering note in Raven's voice, one Tai remembered well.

"She's wrong," Raven said. "She's a fool, just like you, and she's going to get herself _killed _fighting the same stupid war that Summer…" She shook her head. "It's pathetic. _Idiotic. _I'm disappointed in her. I knew she'd taken after you but I thought she'd at least have _some _sense left in her head."

Tai hiked an eyebrow, but didn't offer a direct comment. "Glad to hear she's doing well."

"Fuck you," Raven growled.

"You already have. In a number of senses."

"Everything's a joke to you, isn't it?"

"No, not really." Tai took a deep breath and stepped forward. She didn't run, but she did flinch as he drew up beside her, looking down at Summer's grave. "Honestly, this isn't very funny, but I figure getting you angry at me is better than letting you keep pretending I don't matter to you at all."

"You don't," Raven snarled. "And neither does she, now that she's proven the kind of person she's decided to be. Congratulations Tai, you won, you've doomed our daughter to a pointless death."

"And Summer?"

Raven opened her mouth, but the words didn't come. She couldn't deny it, not here, not like this.

"I noticed," Tai said, his eyes cast down. "Every now and then when I saw you visit, I'd come out here and find things by her grave. Never flowers, you never were the flowers type, but strings of beads, or little stone cups full of wine. I grew up in Mistral too, y'know, I know what those things mean."

"She didn't know," Raven said, her voice hoarse. "It wasn't her fault. We didn't know what Ozpin really was, what his war really meant."

"That's not what you said the last time we talked."

She was silent again, her knuckles white with strain.

He sighed, shutting his eyes and counting to ten. _If she runs, she runs, but you have to do this. _He opened his eyes, and looked up at her face for the first time. "Why are you here, Raven?"

She was crying.

He hadn't realized she was crying.

"I…" she looked at him, and suddenly he remembered the girl he'd met at Beacon, the one who would wake up screaming once a week, who refused to let anyone touch her, who tensed up every time an authority figure was in the same room. He remembered wondering what had happened to her. He remembered the night when she told him, drunk off her mind and cradled in his arms, told him everything.

He remembered the way Summer had looked into her eyes and then hugged her tight. The way Summer had cried for Raven when she couldn't cry for herself.

"I don't…" she swallowed, looking away. "I don't care. Not about her, or about you, or Yang, and certainly not about Ruby. No matter how much she looks like Summer. She has that same stupid idealism too. I'm sure she'll end up just like her mother."

It hurt. Tai shut his eyes again, counting to ten before opening them. "Bullshit."

"Don't you dare—"

"Raven, shut the fuck up." He threw his hands wide. "Why did you come back here if you don't care? Why do you come back every year on Yang's birthday, just to watch, never to stop by and say hello? Why do you still have a portal linked to me and her after all this time?"

"You son of a—"

"No!" Tai stomped, his foot hitting like the thunder above them, shaking the cliff. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, and opened them again. "You're deluding yourself. You've been deluding yourself for years."

She laughed, but it was hollow, unsteady. "And why would I do that?"

"Because you can't handle it, that's why." Tai looked her in the eye, for once letting himself feel the anger he wanted to feel. "You couldn't handle it when Summer died, so you tried to stop caring about anyone else. You cut ties with me, with your daughter, and you refused to let yourself even look at Ruby because you knew, somewhere in your fucked up, emotionally stunted little heart that the moment you did, the moment you let yourself really look at her, you'd love her as much as you loved her mother."

"You don't know the first thing about—"

"Don't I?" He stared her down, tension in every muscle in his body. "Is there anyone alive who knows you better than me? Can you look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong, that you don't care about Yang, that you didn't care about Summer?"

"What does it matter?" Raven shouted, her eyes flying wide. "One hates me and the other is dead!"

The storm was above them now, the clouds promising the rain would be thick when it came. Raven shuddered, looking up at the dark skies, but Tai stood firm.

"It matters because they're not _all _dead," Tai said. "Summer is gone. We're never getting her back. But Yang isn't. Ruby isn't. You aren't. And I'm not."

"What does that even matter?"

" _What does that even matter!? _" Tai shut his eyes and counted to ten. "It matters because it means that the story isn't _over. _It means that… that you don't have to keep _running _from your family."

"You're not my family." Raven looked away, teeth catching on her lower lip. "Not anymore, anyway."

Tai smiled. "Maybe not. But, we could be."

Raven's breath caught in her throat.

The wind picked up, and the rain began to fall.

Tai looked Raven in the eye, letting his guard drop. "You know," he said. "There's a perfectly good house back that way. You helped build it, if I'm not mistaken. And, while it might not feel quite the way it did back then, I can promise that it's warmer than out here."

Raven's eyes shone with a mixture of emotion too complex for casual description. She faltered, stepping back as if to leap off the cliff and fly away, but she hesitated. The tears on her cheeks mixed with the flowing rain.

She was afraid. She'd always been afraid, as long as she could remember, but this time that fear wasn't the hopeless kind, spurred by the dull grinding gears of a cruel world or the sharp cut of a knife. This fear was worse than those, the kind she'd felt when she felt her bond with Summer sever. The kind when she saw her daughter go off to fight an impossible battle. The kind when she looked at Ruby, and saw echoes of the woman who gave her life. It was the fear she felt when she looked into Tai's eyes and remembered why she loved him, and remembered just how much love hurt.

She was so scared of that feeling, she wanted to scream.

But… she remembered what it had been like to be held by them. Summer holding her tight in front, Tai's arms wrapping around from behind. She ached at the memory.

Raven was _tired _of being afraid.

Tai's smile was kind, patient, and so very _familiar._

When he opened his arms, she fell into them.

And the rain fell loud.


End file.
